Arabian Nights
by Dark Facade
Summary: The Harry Potter world, set in the times of the great desert. Not quite sure what's going to happen with this story yet...Suggestions are welcome.
1. Forgotten Sands

When emerald and jade reflect the sands of time.  
  
There's majiic afoot.  
  
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Wind blew across the starless sky, as the last of the emeralds was forgotten. Deep inside the sands.  
  
One lone moon looked upon the desert, the only witness to the century's greatest mishap, that could one day cause a war of the Earth.  
  
No oasis could save it now. 


	2. The Life of a Thief

Brightly coloured ribbons attached to the different stands of the Marketplace blew in the wind, tied down by those wishing to sell them. Anything you could imagine was sold here. It was a bazaar!  
  
"Shh. . .Not yet," whispered a boy to his comrade.  
  
His friend nodded, looking at the stand and then back to the boy. He gave the signal, it was time for the afternoon meal. The boy stole quietly by the stand, whilst the other came to the shopkeeper, pretending to be interested in his goods. Taking care to distract the man to the right direction, the boy's friend quickly stole a glance to where the boy stood. . .he had gotten it. Bidding farewell, and returning to their beginning position, the two took off to their favourite place.  
  
"And he shall be called Khalil, the greatest thief in all of Nazurii!" His friend exclaimed.  
  
"Thank you, thank you," He said, grinning, and making a few bows and tossing an apple to his partner in crime. "But how could he have done it without his lovely assistant? Really, you don't give yourself enough credit."  
  
Khalil stopped. They had just reached the palace gates. For a few moments he paused to stare at the place. It was beautiful. . .what mystery and greatness went on there he longed to find out. Most commoners had never even received the honour of getting past those gates.  
  
"Khalil, what are you doing? You don't want to go in there. . .C'mon, we need to go home."  
  
"Don't you ever wonder what it'd be like to live there?" he asked, following, yet still having his eyes on the palace as they made their way back home.  
  
"Not really. Who'd want to live the life of luxury anyway? A thief's life for me, aye!"  
  
Khalil looked at his friend, not quite sure if he detected a bit of sarcasm in that last comment.  
  
"Either way, one day, I'm getting in there."  
  
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The Princess sat at her window, looking upon the desert night. To the west she could make out the tips of palm trees. . .a desert oasis to many travelers who dared to make it to Kingdoms afar.  
  
There was nothing left in her life that she wanted. She wanted adventure. . .Her life was going to change and it was going to happen soon.  
  
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She grabbed a fruit from a stand and took a bite from her reward of good thieving. The shopkeeper, of course, never noticed her. Who would suspect a girl of being in league with thieves, much less being one herself?  
  
"Amara!" shouted a familiar voice.  
  
She turned to see her best friend Khalil and smirked. No doubt he had come looking for her. It wasn't her fault he had chosen to sleep in past midday.  
  
"Doing the daily rounds without me, now?" Khalil said, finally catching up to her.  
  
"You were sleeping. What was I supposed to do? You're harder to wake up then an elephant, and I'm not about to endanger my life by trying to get you up," Amara grinned and took another bite of the fruit she had stolen.  
  
"Hey, lemme have a bite!" He said, trying to make a grab at her steal.  
  
"No way, Oh Master Thief, get your own!" She said, dodging him and taking another bite.  
  
"C'mon Amara, don't be selfish."  
  
"I got it, get your own."  
  
"Please?"  
  
"It's MINE!"  
  
"Children shouldn't be fighting," came a voice.  
  
They both let go of the fruit, forgetting their argument as they looked up at this newcomer.  
  
Strange would be the perfect way to describe this.  
  
The man was one of the tallest they had ever seen. He wore dark robes that billowed all the way to the sandy ground beneath his feet. They could not see his face, but could imagine him to be wearing a not-so-nice expression from the tone of what he had said.  
  
"I'm looking for a young girl. I've been told I could find her around these parts. Maybe you know her? She goes by Amara," the man said, taking no time to go through foolish introductions.  
  
The two exchanged nervous glances. Had the law finally decided to get on their cases? But no one ever noticed when they stole anything. Even if they were small, trivial things. . .the amount that they would add up to could definitely land them in the palace's dungeons.  
  
"I. . .I am," Amara finally said after a pause. Sure, it was a dumb thing to do, but something was telling her to trust this man.  
  
"What are you doing?!" Khalil whispered fiercely to her. They had no clue who this man was, and she was just giving away information about herself. He trusted her judgement, but still, he did not want to see his friend put in prison. "No, really, she's only joking, her name's Makur-" he said, cutting off as the man raised up his hand, motioning him to stop talking.  
  
"She is Amara. If you'd please come with me," he said.  
  
Now it was Amara's turn to also be suspicious. What did this man want with her? What had she ever done to raise any interest to anyone? "Why?" she asked quite rudely, stepping closer to Khalil, feeling a bit uneasy.  
  
"Now is not the time to speak of these things," the man said.  
  
"Where are you planning on taking her?" Khalil asked, trying to be brave for his friend. He did not like this situation at all, and if wasn't for Amara's stubbornness and odd trust for this man, they would've been gone long ago.  
  
"My next stop is at the palace, now if you'd please get out of Ms. Amara's way, I have many more stops to make today," the man said, beginning to grow impatient.  
  
"You're not taking her anywhere!" Khalil said.  
  
What happened next was not quite clear to either of the two's memories. The man pulled a strange object out of his cloak. It resembled a stick, but was dark and bright sparks were emitting forth from it every once an awhile. Amara's eyes were wide with curiosity. What was this all? The man muttered something they couldn't comprehend, and soon the place they had stood was filled with a thick, gray smoke.  
  
Khalil coughed. He couldn't see anything around him. Falling to the ground, the smoke clouded his vision. It took moments before the smoke had finally cleared enough to see anything. What happened next, Khalil could not comprehend, due to the amazement he was filled with. Amara and the man were no longer there, nor anywhere nearby. They were gone. 


	3. Princess Ahami

Ami was pacing her room, deep in thought. This was probably going to be the stupidest thing she had ever done. She glanced over at the rope she constructed out of sheets that was leading out her window. What was she doing? The whole Kingdom would be talking if she ran away. Where would she go once she was successful? What would she do? Perhaps she was making the wrong decision. But was staying here right?  
  
She walked over to her window and began to pull the rope back up. She needed to think this through some more before she did anything rash. Evening was almost upon the desert, soon everyone would be asleep. Tonight was the perfect night if she was to do it. . .Still. She was not that stupid. Suddenly, as she was pulling up the poorly made rope, smoke filled her room.  
  
The Princess coughed, letting go of the rope, letting it loosely hang from her window as she tried to discover the source of the smoke. Was her room on fire??! The smoke began to clear, and what, rather who, stood there just brought her more confusion.  
  
"Who. . ." Ami tried to say without coughing. No success. "Who are you?" She finally managed to say. She knew she had locked the door to her room a few minutes ago so that no foolish servant would stumble upon her plan before she could get away. These people didn't look much like people she had seen in the palace either. . .they were an odd duo.  
  
The first she noticed was a man, who towered almost to the roof of her room. He was dressed heavily in dark robes, an odd thing to wear on such a hot day. Perhaps he was hiding something? She could not see what was inside the robes, but she assumed it was a man by his garb.  
  
The next, by appearance, she would've also thought to be a boy, but the long hair proved her wrong. What a girl was doing dirty and dressed up like a boy she was very curious to know. The girl looked like a regular vagabond. How could she go out on the street looking like that??  
  
The man pulled out a long sheet of parchment and ran a long finger down it, 'til it stopped at a specific thing on the list. The man looked up from the paper and looked at the Princess. "Princess Ahami?" he asked in a rough voice.  
  
Ami nodded, not bothering to correct him on her name. She hated the name Ahami and normally made everyone call her 'Ami'. Of course, everyone but her Father listened to her. He simply insisted that she must be called her birthname, to her dislike. Still, she held a special bond to the name Ami. It had been the name of her nanny when she was young. She had died from an illness, and Ahami had always loved the name.  
  
"I don't mean to be rude, but if I may ask, what are you doing in my bedroom? I thought I locked it. . ." Ami finally said, regaining her senses. Really! You'd think someone would at least knock! She did not want these two odd-looking people in her bedroom for starters, but the fact that they hadn't even the common courtesy just made her mad.  
  
"I've come to take you with us," the man stated.  
  
"Take me where?" Ami asked, now starting to feel a bit scared. Who were these people? And how did they manage to get past the palace guards and into her room? Why had they tried to set her room on fire? This was just odd and it was making her very nervous. Were they going to kidnap her?!  
  
She looked over at the girl, wondering if she too was in the same position as the Princess. The girl also looked to not quite understand what was going on. The girl looked at her and shrugged. Maybe there wasn't any danger, and this fear was all in her head. The man hadn't really given her any reason not to trust him. . .besides the fact that he had broken into her room.  
  
"You're due to attend the teachings of the Society of Educators of the Highest Esteemed Majiic, or in other words, the professors at The Academy of the Dark Moon see it fit for you to join the school," he said quite plainly.  
  
Ami stared at the man, not quite sure what to say. What was he talking about? Society of what? Magic? Huh?  
  
The man sighed. Really, it was like talking to children. Even if they were only fourteen. "You're to be a sorceress. The High Educator demands it. Which is why I am not leaving until you've agreed to come along with us," the man said.  
  
The girl who had come with the man turned to him. "So that's what this is all about? We're to learn magic? And be sorcerors? Are there other people like us? Do they know magic? Is that what you did back there on the street? Magic? Do you know how to do anything else?" The girl's words spiraled into hundreds of questions that could not really be deciphered from each other because of the speed which she was talking.  
  
"Enough of your questions, girl," the man said sternly to the young girl. He turned his attention back to Ami. "Now, Princess, are you to come with us, or are you to make my job harder?" The man looked the kind that you had better do what they say, or else there'd be trouble.  
  
Ami thought for a moment. Should she just take off with this man, whom she had never met before? He sounded truthful enough. . .Still she did not like the looks of him. He seemed the kind you'd meet in a dark street, doing shady deals. He was a man of few words, and maybe even dark secrets. . .But. Would she rather waste her life here in the Palace? There was really nothing to loose. "I. . .I supposed it'll be alright," she said, agreeing to join their sorry-looking group.  
  
The man waved a dark object, and the room disappeared from their eyes. Their adventure to the school was to begin.  
  
There were many stops made throughout that night. So many, Ami couldn't count. Most were, surprisingly, not as suspicious as Ami had been about the man. In fact, most seemed as if they had been expecting an invitation to the school.  
  
What lay ahead for these children was unknown to the Princess. What strange things she could expect, she did not know either. All she knew was she was at a new chapter in her life, one filled with wonder and mystery. . .but could also be filled with dark, serious things. What would she find at the Academy? Only time would tell. 


End file.
